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Secret Tech: The Access They Don't Want You to Know · Living Loud and Proud: Disability Conversations

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Welcome to the Living Loud and Proud podcast,
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brought to you by Disability Pride Pennsylvania.
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If you need a link to the transcript for this
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episode, please visit our accessible website
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at www .disabilitypridepa .org slash podcast.
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And now, here is your host. Hey folks, welcome
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back to the Living Loud and Proud podcast. I'm
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your host, Phil Rosen, here with my co -producer,
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Ray Deca -Horton. How's it going, Ray? All right,
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folks. How's everybody doing? Well, today's episode
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is going to be Ray and I just having a bit of
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a chat for all of you to enjoy about new technologies.
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And, you know, we're really centering more on...
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new technologies that were created with productivity
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in mind or like something other than like the
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accessibility aspect in mind, but have a lot
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of hidden accessibility within them or maybe
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not hidden, but you know. In other words, keeping
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it as simple as possible, tech. or workflows
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that were presented to people without disabilities,
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but actually benefit people with various disabilities
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more so. Thanks, Ray. My scrambled thoughts definitely
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do not always help me to present these things.
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Anyways, so I guess the first one that we kind
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of really sort of wanted to talk about was text
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-to -speech apps, right? Yeah, definitely. Big
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time. And you brought up one that exemplifies
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it the most, which we'll get to further in this
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podcast when you brought up Dragon, naturally
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speaking. Yeah, yeah. And I actually remember
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when this one was released. And, you know, I
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was, let's see, I was eight years old at the
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time that it got released. And I remember it,
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you know, when it first came out. Because my
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mom was like, oh, I don't need to type using
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this. Like it freed her up and she was starting
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to have her disability kind of appear. And so
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typing became a little bit more difficult for
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her at this time. Wait, who are you referring
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to again? My mother. Okay. Yeah. So, you know,
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the fact that there was this thing, you could
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wear a headset. talk into it and it would literally
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just type it out for you in a word document was,
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you know, this brilliant thing. And I actually
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remember, you know, looking it up and there's
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actually videos of it on YouTube being mentioned
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on the nightly business report in June of 1997.
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So this was like a big deal because it was being
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sold to a lot of businesses. It's like, Hey,
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this is good for your call center employees or
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your receptionists. So they can, you know, be
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chatting, you know, and doing something else
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with their hands. Like maybe they could be like
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stuffing envelopes or, or whatever other like
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little thing that they might need to do. It would
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be a way to kind of get double tasking done much
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easier. Yeah, well, what I remember about Dragon,
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naturally speaking, when it was released, I remember
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the commercials and everything. And the thing
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that was puzzling me was here was this here product
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that was, you know, being advertised like on
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the actual, you know, television. But I definitely
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also remember more so, you know, it being on
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the Web everywhere you looked and everything.
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But it was strictly as an office thing. And it
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wasn't talking about the thing that was driving
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me kind of crazy, which had me a little confused
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about it was it was always being like you said,
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being directed towards office. And, you know,
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at that time I was working in check cashing and
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accounting. So, you know, I was definitely always
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hearing about it, you know, and also the. The
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voice training aspect of it, how you got to train
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your voice for it to recognize it correctly.
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But not once did I hear anybody say, you know,
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the people who are advertising it and promoting
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it, talking about how it is a savior for people
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who don't have typing skills or people with certain
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disabilities. So to the point, a lot of people
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around me figured it was not able to be used
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by those type of individuals. You know, that's
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really interesting, too, because like, you know,
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you see like a lot of those as seen on TV products,
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which we will get to in a second, folks. But
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you see a lot of those infomercials and they
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don't necessarily talk about it being like something
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that disabled people could use. They just are
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showing the usefulness for anyone. You know,
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exactly. So it's just exactly the same thing.
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You know, it's almost as though, oh, I don't
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know. There's kind of a mental block for a lot
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of people when it comes to disability. Well,
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you know what? It's because of, now when we first
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started talking about this, I looked up and I
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realized something that we probably hear all
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the time. But this is what it actually is that
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we're all, you know, suffering from. Biased advertising,
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biased representation, which means misrepresentation
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to be exact. Meaning, well, you know what the
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word biased means, you know, for one particular
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thing, one particular group, you know, and that's
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what it is with a lot of these products, you
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know, which we've seen it with, you know, a lot
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of medications like, you know, so many people,
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you know, by. Well, I can't think of one right
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off hand, but, you know, we have the whole thing
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like where there's different painkillers and
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you're thinking it will work for any kind of
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pain. And then you're being told, oh, no, this
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isn't for migraines. But because it's so strong,
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well, shouldn't it be good for migraines? You
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know, or then you turn around, find out because
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they only said it was for arthritis. It actually
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is good for migraines, you know. Right. But you
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never used it because they only talked about
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it being good for just my, you know, one or the
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other, you know, and is so crazy that that, you
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know, we get stuck thinking like that and don't
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realize that there's something that's out there
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right in our face that we could probably be using
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for to help enhance our way of life. But because
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we were never mentioned in the demographic that
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it was, you know. biased advertised to we're
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thinking no it's not for us you know uh well
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uh let's let's think of something else you know
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we talked about dragon naturally speaking yeah
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so i i guess we could kind of go on into the
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the as seen on tv products that i kind of you
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know hinted at You know, two that really came
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to mind for both of us were the clapper, you
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know, the clap on, clap off light, and the slap
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chop, you know, the little cup that has the blade
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that you slap and you put nuts in the cup or
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whatever, and it'll, you know, chop it into a
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rough dice or whatever, whatever you need it
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for. I actually don't know about that. Oh, you
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don't know about that? No. Oh, okay. Well, it
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was... a thing that I remember as a kid seeing,
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you know, everywhere. And yeah, those are two
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things like, you know, with the clapper, of course,
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you know, you don't have to get up and, and,
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you know, go flip a light switch, you know, from
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whatever you're doing. Right. Obviously makes
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a lot of sense for people who are, you know,
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they're confined to their bed or or maybe they're
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you know in a chair but they're exhausted and
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don't want to get up don't want to expend the
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energy yeah so you know now you know what's funny
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let me tell you something i remember about the
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clapper commercials in a way when they first
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started it uh they were advertising it in a way
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for people, you know, not necessarily with full
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disability, but hey, it's kind of hard for people
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on getting up. Then it just went on ahead with
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just all about, okay, it's more convenient and
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you can be more lazy now. You know, I don't know
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if that was biased advertising or they realized
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that more people just wanted to be lazy and have
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a convenience. So they switched it more to that
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way. But that's what I remember for those commercials.
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Well, they were selling it to the... They were
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selling it to the general American public. So
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yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, but, you know,
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that, that is actually, you know, very interesting
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thing. Cause you're right. It did kind of start
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off as like, almost like, you know, people with
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disabilities or elderly people, especially. Yeah,
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exactly. But yeah, it did kind of morph into
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that. And then, you know, with the Slap Chop,
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I don't remember there being commercials that
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specifically like called out people with disabilities
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or people who have dexterity issues, but it was,
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you know, a way to help people who had poor knife
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skills to be more successful at cooking. Right.
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Like a lot of people will, you know, they'll
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try cooking and they'll get frustrated because
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like they can't cut the. the food the right way
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or like, you know, whatever reason it just becomes
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this really kind of daunting, hard task. But
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with something like the slap chop where, you
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know, you can take a handful of nuts, you know,
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dice it real quick and, and boom, you have something
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you can sprinkle over ice cream. It can actually
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make life a lot easier for people who would otherwise
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be unmotivated to learn. Right. So. Of course,
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they're advertising to those kinds of people
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who don't have a lot of skill in the kitchen,
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who want to learn how to cook for themselves.
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Maybe they want to be healthier. I don't know.
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But it's a way to get those people into the kitchen.
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Of course, it does have that added benefit for
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people who do have dexterity issues due to a
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disability. It allows them to take certain ingredients
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and more easily. uh, manipulate them into whatever
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they need for the recipe. Like they don't have
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to have a giant chef's knife where maybe they
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have a grip issue. And that ends up becoming
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a nasty weapon. Right. So, you know, it's, it's
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one of those things like, uh, it had a dual purpose
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and, and like, this is all over the infomercial
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world too. Like, I mean, so many of these different
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products, have like the disability side to them
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like maybe even they were created for the disability
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community right right but for one reason or another
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the market is such a small part of the share
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if it was only being marketed to disabled people
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or the other flip side of it is you know maybe
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you know you are successful getting it out there
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to the disabled community but it would become
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a medical device And then when you call it a
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medical device, well then, you know, of course
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the upcharging happens and, you know, a lot of
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people who are disabled would not be able to
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afford it. Yeah. So it helps to keep the price
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down. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, as far as
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I'm concerned, that's like a big sort of thing
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about these products where they're like trying
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to just. paper over that, but it actually makes
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a lot of sense. And it does take some critical
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thinking to get there sometimes too. Oh, and
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you know what? By the way, I want to just go
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back to the dragon naturally speaking. There
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is something that I did forget to mention. Within
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the last decade and a half, it has been incorporated
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into the arsenal for people with disabilities
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because i remember several you know like uh places
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that you know train people with disabilities
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actually using it you know of course now there's
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better you know technology and and i'm well you
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know what we can get right into that well i mean
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there's technology that it's based off of rolled
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into pretty much every phone os now yeah and
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every computer, right? I mean, you know, iOS,
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OSX, Windows, you know, all the different Android,
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every one of them. And, you know, it kind of
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is sort of adjacent to and related to cousins
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with, say, the voice assistants, right? Which
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every smartphone is integrated with. You know,
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Yeah, because like, well, yeah, I mean, it's
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now something that is commonplace, you know,
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with our smartphone technology, with our smartphone
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culture, with our Android iPhone culture. You
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know, we have voice commands. We have voice to
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text. Training with your voice doesn't take much.
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I mean, there's still always glitches and, you
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know, here and there, you know, goddamn autocorrect
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and all that other stuff. Right. But, yeah, it's
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now part of our thing. But here goes the amazing
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thing. I still come across individuals with certain
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disabilities that do not realize that this technology
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can help them with it, whether we're talking
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about intellectual disabilities, mobility disabilities.
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mobility disabilities. I don't know if that's
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actually a regular phrase. You know, and it's
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so funny because like, what is it, tech owl?
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Tech owl, yeah. Having to, you know, point this
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out to, you know, different individuals, clients,
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you know, and I'm like, you figured that, you
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know, they would know. that they would realize
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that this could be something that could help
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with, you know, their day to day or stuff that
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they just weren't able to do before. And once
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again, also, like we were talking about with
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drag and naturally speaking, you know, about
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how it'd be good for people who don't have typing
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skills. It, once again, here we are, you know,
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especially with AI enhancement. Now, you know,
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a lot of people aren't realizing, you know, that
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this technology is, here for everyone now and
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that it can be benefited by everyone even if
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they have a disability and you know you're going
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to have some people that say well what about
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if somebody can't see hear or speak I'm like
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well for starters so we're talking Helen Keller
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Yeah. I'm pretty sure that we're not too far
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from somebody trying to figure out how they can
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utilize this here modern technology, you know,
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upgrade this so that way that person can use
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it also. But there's always something for either
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or that can be figured out, you know, as long
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as you're willing to like, you know, accept that
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there's a chance that this is something that
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you can use, you know, regardless of whether
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it's being, you know. represented to your demographic
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or not, you know. Bill, explain to everybody
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what TechOwl is. So TechOwl is a part of the
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Institute on Disabilities at Temple University
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in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is the Oh,
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gosh. I'm actually not sure what the exact correct
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terminology is, but they provide all of the accessible
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technologies under the AT Act to allow people
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with disabilities throughout the entire state
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of Pennsylvania to access technologies that might
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help them to live more fulfilling lives. So they
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have things like they have a library of different
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devices that people can... asked to borrow to
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see if hey maybe this might work for me you know
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things like um you know well like smart speakers
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you know like echo dots and and like things like
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that or um you know uh grabbers or right uh something
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else that they they also have i think is like
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a smart drive for wheelchair users who might
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be thinking about getting one right they basically
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help you with the accessible technology like
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my experience with tech outside from knowing
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a lot of people who work there personally uh
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is like so many people with various disabilities
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i've talked to have said oh yeah i'll be at tech
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all because they're going to show me how to use
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this app or that app or this device you know
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that's on their phone you know and they never
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realized before you know this was something that
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they've had all along that could have assisted
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them with this particular problem or disability
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that they had. And so many times I'm hearing
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different people who work there at Tech Isle
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telling me how they're getting ready to go on
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ahead and tutor or explain or train somebody
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how to do this or that with something that they
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already have. But they were never ever aware
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that, you know, it was something that they could
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have been utilizing because, well, it wasn't
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presented to them. It was, they only knew. the
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biased representation of it, you know, not the
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all -encompassing representation of it. Right.
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And, you know, the thing with TechOwl, too, is,
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like, they're constantly teaching people how
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to better utilize their smartphones, for instance,
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or their iPads because there's a lot of settings
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that are, like, really hidden within the OS.
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Yeah. And so, like, you know, the menus aren't
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always the most easy to navigate. And sometimes
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there are things that you would think, you know,
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might be in the audio section, but really you
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got to go over to display instead. No matter
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what, check out and go on ahead. It can help
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you figure that out. Yeah, exactly. So, you know,
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and they're dealing with a whole, you know, the
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general public too. So there's like a lot of
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people who are like older, who may not be the
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most technically literate or people who may not
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have a formal education of some kind. even if
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they are more technically literate individuals,
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they may not think about how some of these devices
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or some of these settings might benefit them,
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even if they know how to get to them. Right.
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So it's like one of those things where TechOwl
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is there to help anyone who might need it. Yeah,
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exactly. They provide a really fantastic service
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to the community. Yeah, and another interesting
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thing is how, like, you know, once again, biased
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representation in advertising, we're going to
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go with the whole voice commands and voice assistants,
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you know, stuff. Like, give me an example of
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different voice assistants, you know, assistants,
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like the noun. Yeah, well, you know, probably
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the most famous one would be Siri. Right. on
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iOS. Windows famously had Cortana. I don't know
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if they still do. It's still there. Oh, it's
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still there? Really? I haven't heard about it.
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I know Samsung has their own voice assistant.
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It's named Bixby. I don't know why. It's a bit
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weird, but you do you, Samsung. Of course, Amazon
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has Alexa. Yeah, exactly. Now, the reason why
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I'm bringing this up is because, once again,
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we see all these commercials and everything,
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you know, for these different voice assistants.
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And if you think about it, they weren't really
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directed. They were just directed to like, you
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know, being a personal, you know, assistant to,
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you know, regular folks. But can you imagine?
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Let's go back to. Denzel Washington's film, The
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Bone Collector. His character, Lincoln Rimes.
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And what was Lincoln Rimes' disability? He was
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a full, what? Paraplegic. Paraplegic, yeah. Yeah,
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and he just had use of that one finger. But can
22:11
you imagine if that movie had him with the voice
22:14
assistant at the time? It probably would have
22:17
been a slightly shorter film. But, yeah, you
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know, but it's like, yeah, once again, here goes
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something. Guess what? You know, now, fortunately,
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a lot of people who are in a situation like that
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have thought about that. But you still have some
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people, like you pointed out with TechOwl, having
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to let a lot of older people, you know, basically
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the whole. teach an old dog new tricks thing,
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you know, still, you know, don't stop to think
22:53
about that, which I've seen examples of this.
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I'm like, uh, hold on. You got, uh, you've actually
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got an assistant to help you with your, uh, medication
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and all that, you know, with, you know, the voice
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that's either on your computer or on your phone,
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you know, and it's kind of funny because like,
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we do see some commercials where there are, you
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know, older people who are telling younger people
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how they could have been using this you know
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like uh what is that car commercial where the
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older woman the grandmother is telling her kid
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how to set her grandson how to sell the car and
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she's like okay i'm gonna go ask somebody who's
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got more sense for whatever it was she was going
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to ask me for originally but yeah you know right
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and you know alexa is famous as well for uh enabling
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toddlers to order toys for themselves oh that's
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frightening okay i'm joking of course but um
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point still stands that it helps people who otherwise
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would not have the means to do something to achieve
23:59
these things more easily right yeah and oh my
24:04
god can we talk about lighting oh yeah so um
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I will say that when it comes to certain things
24:17
about lighting, I'm not the most knowledgeable
24:21
about how lighting is important for people with
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low vision. Right. But I do know that lighting
24:26
is very important for those individuals because
24:29
it can make or break or make them more tired
24:32
or it can help energize them depending on how
24:35
the lighting is in a room. Yeah. I'll tell you
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what I know, you know, and I'm going to cite
24:43
two particular things, you know, where it falls
24:47
right into this here discussion about, you know,
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technologies that you did not realize you could
24:53
be using, you know, for more than just what it
24:58
was biasly, you know, represented to you for,
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you know. Now, when we first talked about this,
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you brought up. stuff about circadian rhythm
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which i want to touch on but first i want to
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talk about two particular examples that i have
25:15
observed first one is the old black lights for
25:20
fluorescent paint yeah yeah as far as we are
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concerned black light fluorescent paint you know
25:31
to make that paint just glow It's just good for
25:34
that, you know, or, you know, mood at the club.
25:38
But notice what I said, mood at the club. A lot
25:43
of people don't realize that black light is actually
25:45
good for certain mood situations, which will
25:48
probably tie into your whole circadian rhythm
25:50
thing, which we'll get to later on. But I myself
25:54
have observed, you know, how so many people,
25:57
you know, really are able to go on ahead and
26:00
get into, I'm not going to say zen -like. but
26:03
definitely a more relaxed type of way, you know,
26:09
by just sitting in with mood light, which leads
26:14
also to different color lightings that we've
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seen, you know. And like I said, I'm pretty sure
26:21
that you could probably touch more on that when
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you talk a little bit more about circadian rhythms
26:28
with lighting, which I'm getting ahead. to the
26:32
audience unfortunately sorry about that but then
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there's the other thing too that i find is the
26:40
biggest crock you know there's a whole industry
26:44
for you know these here sunlight lamps you know
26:48
and it's so crazy because well guess what you
26:53
can you can still get that kind of well for starters
26:58
What's the sunlight lamps for? For to help people
27:00
with that dreary feeling, that depression and
27:04
everything. And guess what? You're spending all
27:06
this extra money for these sunlight lamps. And
27:09
the same effect can come from just having well
27:12
-lit rooms, you know, starting at, you know,
27:15
100 watt outage output. You know, in my case,
27:19
I like actually have inside my office a 400 watt
27:22
bulb. And trust me, that's really great. And
27:26
also. Ample lighting helps with your sight, of
27:32
course, meaning you're not doing as much eye
27:35
straining, which what happens with eye strain?
27:39
Oh, God. Well, of course, your eyes go bad, headaches
27:42
and whatnot. Dry eyes. Yeah. So a lot of stuff
27:48
people don't realize that they could have been
27:53
just using. For that, some people don't even
27:55
realize that they even had that issue going on.
27:59
Right. Well, I will say that SAD is a real thing
28:04
and people who need those special lights for
28:07
SAD specifically, sometimes adequate lighting
28:09
in your room doesn't necessarily help with all
28:12
of that stuff, but I get your point. All white
28:17
output. Well, the other thing too is I also just
28:21
want to touch on Those sunlight lamps are extremely
28:24
important above the Arctic Circle. Because during
28:30
the winter, what happens? Oh, well, yeah, yeah,
28:34
you know. You don't get any sunlight. You need
28:37
that for the vitamin D response. But anyways,
28:41
so there are some small applications, of course.
28:45
Right. You know, you're right that in general,
28:49
a lot of people who are just feeling a little
28:51
dreary or like don't, you know. Right. But guess
28:55
what? You just pointed something out because
28:57
I never hear anybody talk about the sunlight
28:59
maps for a case where they need to have, you
29:03
know, vitamin D, you know, which is, yeah, what
29:05
we get from, you know, sunlight. So, yeah, still
29:08
hit the nail on the head, even, you know, for
29:12
that, you know. But. Something that I actually
29:16
kind of want to talk about that's somewhat related
29:19
to the eye strain comment that you just made
29:21
is we constantly hear people talk about blue
29:25
light from devices. Right. Right? So one of the
29:30
things that often gets sold to people are things
29:33
like blue light glasses or eye drops that help
29:36
with blue light, eye strain, that kind of stuff.
29:38
And a lot of those are sold to people with the
29:41
idea, well... You have a 9 -to -5, you're spending
29:45
eight hours in front of a computer screen, and
29:48
they want to get more production out of you,
29:53
of course. So what do you need to do to combat
29:56
the problems and the stress? Well, you get glasses
29:59
that have lenses that counteract the blue light.
30:03
Now, that's not necessarily good or bad, but
30:08
one of the things that's really interesting about
30:10
this is Blue light does affect the circadian
30:14
rhythm. Let's define what the circadian rhythm
30:16
is. It's your body's natural internal clock that
30:20
regulates a variety of physiological processes
30:22
over a 24 -hour period a day, primarily influenced
30:27
by light and darkness. Okay. So when you think
30:32
about it, like our modern existence right now,
30:36
we have screens everywhere. We have lights all
30:39
over the place. We don't have the normal natural
30:43
cycle of the sun turning to night. So we have
30:50
this situation where we've disrupted our sleep
30:53
cycles in a lot of cases because people have
30:57
electricity for the most part now. You have devices
31:02
that are casting off light all the time. Exactly.
31:05
Directly beamed to your eyes, especially from
31:08
screens like your phone. And TV and monitors.
31:13
Okay. Exactly. So this light that's coming from
31:19
your screen is of a wavelength that is more or
31:23
less closer to the sun's wavelengths. It's blue
31:26
light. And this messes with your body's internal
31:30
clock. Okay. And it can create a situation where...
31:36
People will, you know, I mean, we're all addicted
31:38
to our phones or many of us are addicted to our
31:40
phones, I should say. And, you know, so we're
31:43
constantly looking at them. A lot of people have
31:46
a somewhat problematic cycle. They'll be on their
31:51
phone until it's time to go to sleep. Right.
31:55
And this, of course, means that your body is
31:58
not producing, you know, things like melatonin
32:00
or, you know, some of the other hormones that
32:03
I do not have off the top of my head right now.
32:06
uh so your body is not processing the signals
32:09
to get to sleep and moreover even if you do fall
32:14
asleep right after you put your phone down you
32:18
know not having enough of these hormones you
32:20
know built up within your system means that you're
32:25
not necessarily getting to the more restful sleep
32:27
okay so one of the things that is a big deal
32:32
is like Doctors will say, oh, you should put
32:34
your phone down 90 minutes before bed. But there
32:41
are a lot of different other things, too. Like,
32:43
you know, there are blue light filters, quote
32:46
unquote, that you can put on your technology
32:48
like your phone. And what it'll do is it'll change
32:51
the color temperature of your phone screen to
32:54
help combat this a little bit. OK. And. So let's
33:04
get this right. Those filters were for other
33:12
things, more or less just vision things, but
33:14
nobody was ever realizing that it was also for,
33:17
could be used for the circadian rhythm. For a
33:22
long time, that's definitely the case. Okay.
33:24
All right. Because I had to ask where we don't
33:28
know what, you know, it can also be used for.
33:30
OK. And yeah. And now that we know what the circadian
33:33
rhythm is, that's actually very important because
33:36
you know what? That would probably explain why
33:38
most of my adult life was spent me never, ever
33:40
going to bed. I mean, there could be other reasons.
33:46
No, I spent a lot of screen time, whether we're
33:51
talking about television or computer monitors,
33:54
you know, in the early days, you know, especially
33:58
with all the tech stuff I was working with, you
34:00
know. But OK, yeah. Well, you know what? I can't
34:05
really think of anything else right now. You
34:08
know, I mean, if there's suggestions from out
34:11
there in the audience about other products. you
34:13
know, or devices or whatever, you know, that
34:16
a lot of people, you know, did not realize, you
34:21
know, would benefit them because of biased advertising
34:24
or representation, you know, hit us up, you know,
34:28
let us know and we'll all discuss it, you know.
34:31
What about you, Bill? Anything else? I can't
34:35
think of anything off the top of my head now.
34:36
Right. All right. Well, sign off. Yeah. Well,
34:42
thanks for listening, everyone. That's a Living
34:46
Loud and Proud podcast for today. If you enjoyed
34:51
this episode, please like, share, comment, all
34:55
the different things. And, you know, continue
34:59
the conversation online. We'd love to hear, you
35:02
know, your opinion on everything. Until next
35:05
time, folks. All right, everybody. Have a good
35:09
time. Please visit our accessible website at
35:16
www .disabilitypridepa .org. You can find us
35:23
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